I don't understand why this was designed this way. I found it annoying, too. I believe it only happens when there are more than one piece of media, but iPhone messages with media sometimes (maybe always?) come in with the text as "media" as well.

You can tap on the slideshow to expose controls, and then press the "fast forward" button to quickly go through the media. Or, better yet, you can switch to another SMS app - Hangouts, Google Messenger, Textra, I think Verizon Message+ as well, etc. - that will just show the media as separate pieces within the message. That's how I solved the problem.

I don't understand why this was designed this way. I found it annoying, too. I believe it only happens when there are more than one piece of media, but iPhone messages with media sometimes (maybe always?) come in with the text as "media" as well.

You can tap on the slideshow to expose controls, and then press the "fast forward" button to quickly go through the media. Or, better yet, you can switch to another SMS app - Hangouts, Google Messenger, Textra, I think Verizon Message+ as well, etc. - that will just show the media as separate pieces within the message. That's how I solved the problem.

thanks for the reply back.

from doing some research, i have come to the conclusion that you do need to change from the stock app to not have the "slideshow".

It doesnt have to do with the aoo your using to view text messages, its because it came from an Iphone

Nope, it was the horrible default messaging app that Moto puts in KitKat that does this when you have anybody who sends you a message with more than a single piece of media. What makes the iPhone a pain is that it converts the text portion of a message with a single photo to an image, so you get an image with a photo (or music or whatever the media is) and then you get an image of the body of the text, too. But if an Android/Windows Mobile/BB/feature phone/emailer (to yournumber@vzwpics.com) sends you a message with two photos you get the same PITA slideshow.

That doesn't happen in many third party messaging apps, including Hangouts (which is on the phone already.) I'm not sure about Verizon Messages - I don't like that app and don't feel like testing it right now.